"Mary Sweeny... was an American woman known as 'the Window Smasher' because of her mania for breaking glass windows across Wisconsin and neighbouring states during the 1890s...."

"One cause of her window breaking sprees was reported to be drinking; it was also noted that she was seeking vengeance against medical doctors. She is said to have used cocaine to self-medicate because "it quiets her nerves." She was quoted as liking 'to hear the glass jingle.' She broke windows of shops and trains using anything to hand, including stones, sticks of wood, or a satchel. Authorities dealt with her by arresting and jailing her, hospitalising her, committing her to insane asylums, and paying for her rail travel to another town. She boasted that she would quickly escape from hospitals and asylums, and succeeded several times. Her sanity was assessed by doctors, who declared her sane, or as one newspaper stated, She appears to be perfectly rational on all subjects except that of window smashing.' She did not know why she broke windows but did it only 'when the craze seized her.'"

Wikipedia tells the story of Mary Sweeny — whom you will remember if you ever read the book or saw the documentary movie "Wisconsin Death Trip."

I'm thinking about Mary Sweeny today, as so many people in our country now seem to have acquired a mania for breaking glass.

I first blogged about the movie "Wisconsin Death Trip" on March 4, 2004, less than 2 months after starting this blog. I said:

Is there something especially morbid and sick about Wisconsin? As a person living in Wisconsin, I had to wonder if the book was picking on us, or, no I didn't really, because there is always the out for us here in Madison to say Madison is an island of difference within the state. But I knew this film was well regarded.... It was quite beautiful and original visually and quite moving and full of fascinating characters (like Mary Sweeny, a cocaine-sniffing woman with a mania for breaking glass)....

We tend to think of Wisconsin as a notably healthy, wholesome place. (Notice the characters in movies who say they are from Wisconsin: Annie Hall, Jack Dawson in Titanic, etc., etc.) So I am thinking: to show the dark side of Wisconsin is to say something about the dark side of humanity. This story of Black River Falls in the last decade of the nineteenth century is (as presented through the film, if not the book) a universal story of passion and violence and death and madness.

There were no comments on the blog back then, but it became possible to comment later when I activated the comments function. There is one comment there now, dated June 11, 2009. It's Meade, whom I met in January 2009. He said:

I shall move to Wisconsin and protect you from the dark side of humanity. It will be my mission of love... my raison d'etre.*

The dark side of humanity has not gone away, Meade's mission continues, and I'm still looking for the light. I've taken up the ritual of running to see the sunrise over Lake Mendota — over Lake Mendota and the Mendota Asylum for the Insane — which is now called the Mendota Mental Health Institute — where Mary Sweeny was committed in 1897.

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* I corrected Meade's typo, and I also corrected my misspelling of "Mary Sweeny."